Faculty Executive Committee will meet with Margaret Spellings

The Faculty Executive Committee met Monday to discuss UNC-system President Margaret Spellings’ campus visit today.

Faculty Chairperson Bruce Cairns said Spellings will meet with the committee for an hour and 15 minutes to ask members questions about UNC-Chapel Hill, the UNC system and higher education as a part of her tour of UNC-system college campuses.

Cairns said Spellings is not coming to UNC to answer questions posed to her but to gauge the concerns of faculty and their thoughts about improving the state’s universities.

“I think this is an information gathering tour, not an answers tour,” Cairns said.

Cairns said Spellings will ask the committee three questions that mirror those she has asked while visiting other campuses: what makes faculty most proud about UNC and the UNC system, what are the most important issues facing higher education and where can work be done to improve UNC and the UNC system?

“It sounded like these were questions for her, not for us,” said committee member and Spanish professor Rosa Perelmuter.

Cairns said he thinks it’s admirable that Spellings is willing to hear opinions from all of the system schools when she’s been in office for less than a month.

Committee member Joe Ferrell said Spellings is asking broad questions to get people to understand that universities are not just preparing students to function in an international economy but to have strong lives in their communities as well.

Jim Gregory, spokesperson for UNC, said he knows some students are coming to protest Spellings around 11:30 or noon outside of Gerrard Hall while she’s having brunch with student leaders. He said it’s fine that students are going to express their views.

“We encourage all kinds of dialogue at the University,” Cairns said.

Cairns said he was grateful the committee had the opportunity to speak with Spellings, and he said he doesn’t think it’ll be the last time they have an opportunity like this.

The committee also discussed the new Texas state law that led to the University of Texas at Austin allowing students to carry concealed guns in classrooms and the policy’s implications for UNC.

Cairns said the issue needs to be discussed, and faculty should be proactive if a similar policy ever became a reality at UNC. He said no one knows what the North Carolina legislature will do in the future.

Ferrell said an effective response would be to look at concealed carry for students in classrooms as a public health issue.

“This is not something that might happen,” Cairns said. “It has happened.”

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